A train from Vietnam passes the China-Vietnam border in Hekou county, Southwest China's Yunnan Province in 2018. Photo: IC

A major construction process of a railway that will connect cities on the China-Vietnam border in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was completed on Sunday, laying the foundation for the operation of the railway within this year.
 
Concrete pouring for the continuous beam on the 7,518-meter Xiwan Cross-sea Double-track Bridge of the Fangchenggang-Dongxing Railway was completed on Sunday morning. 

This means that the continuous beam structure of the entire railway line has been completed, according to media reports, citing China Railway, which is building the line.

The construction of the roadbed, bridges, tunnels and tracks of the railway is now 95 percent complete. 

The 46.9-kilometer railway is an extension of the Guangxi coastal high-speed railway, according to the local government. 

A China-Vietnam freight train pulls out of Xi'an international port in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Aug. 23, 2022. The freight train left the Xi'an international port in Shaanxi Province on Tuesday for Vietnam's Hanoi, marking the first China-Vietnam freight train route connecting Shaanxi and Vietnam. The train was loaded with 41 carriages of asbestos which were transported from Kazakhstan to Xi'an via the China-Europe freight train service. (Xinhua/Li Yibo)

As Dongxing is the only port city in China connecting with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by both land and sea, the railway will be an important part of the international connectivity channel between China and Vietnam, and also between China and ASEAN. 

The railway will be the first to connect the cities of Fangchenggang and Dongxing in Guangxi, cutting the journey between the two cities to 20 minutes from the previous one hour.

The railway has a designed speed limit of 200 kilometers per hour, but the railway's  infrastructure will be able to handle trains with a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour.